In this episode of the weekly Budget & Tax News podcast, managing editor and research fellow Jesse Hathaway talks with Cato Institute policy analyst Dan Ikenson about how international trade is not a scoreboard to measure a nation’s economic success against other countries, but the best way to improve the lives of everyday Americans, and everyday people all over the world.

Let us be clear. We are living, right now, in a time of emotional fear, hysterical anger, illogical demands, and dangerous temptations. In other words, liberty and prosperity are at risk. A decent and tolerant society is threatened. Common principles of humanity are being undermined.

Parents, students, educators, and pro-liberty activists across the nation will be celebrating National School Choice Week, which began on Sunday and will wrap up on January 30. It’s a time to celebrate the education choices some students now enjoy and to open up similar opportunities for all students. All children deserve access to a quality education. Politicians must stop making parents ask for permission to educate their children properly, because parents know better than anyone else which educational strategies and environments will work best. It is up to all taxpayers to demand school choice and give parents the power to guide their children’s education.

Politicians, international bureaucrats, radical environmental activists, and bought-and-paid-for government scientists recently gathered in Paris to shape a climate change treaty less about fighting climate change and more about ensuring the existence of an ongoing flow of big-dollar research grants to researchers and activist organizations and greater control of the world economy for politicians and bureaucrats.

A hundred years ago, teachers first formed unions in the United States. At that time, too many teachers lost their jobs for reasons such as an unplanned pregnancy or gaining too much weight. Wages and working conditions often were substandard.

Imagine you wanted to get in your electric car and drive a considerable distance. It wouldn’t take long for your car to run out of power, so you would have to have another car, one using gasoline, to drive behind you to make sure you reached your destination.

Perhaps the most quintessential American theme throughout its history has been the role politicians have played in creating it—we call them our Founding Fathers—and the endless role of those who have wanted to take us in the wrong direction or at least tried to.

Will man’s folly over CO2 end up banning cars, limiting living space, and stripping citizens of personal freedoms, all for the purpose of creating a world some politicians envision as necessary to control the population? Or will facts that dispute the global warming alarmists be given equal publicity and consideration by the media and responsible officials?

The heat on Common Core was high this spring, but I predict it will be even higher come state legislative sessions this January. It’s the last year states can conceivably avoid joining the train wreck that will be Common Core tests, which are due to replace state tests in March and following. But the earnest moms and dads that comprise the Common Core grassroots have been largely burned by their representatives, who either have responded to serious arguments by relabeling Common Core or diverting blame for it. They’re politicians, man, not representatives.

President Obama seems committed to forcing the minimum wage up through federal intervention. If he succeeds, it will only damage the economy further, resulting in higher unemployment and less growth. Here are four reasons a minimum wage is a bad idea.